In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, we have our third and final interview with "John" (not his real name; u/Muvanji on Reddit), who we've followed throughout his law school admissions cycle for 2024-2025. John discusses his final decision on where to attend, his process of requesting scholarship reconsideration, his decision not to pursue waitlists, admitted students days, what he's looking forward to in law school, and his thoughts and reflections on the law school admissions process now that it's over.
Prior episodes with John:
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Full Transcript:
Anna: Hello and welcome to Status Check with Spivey, where we talk about life, law school, law school admissions, a little bit of everything. I'm Anna Hicks-Jaco, Spivey Consulting's president, and today we have the last episode of our series following one applicant's whole admissions process for the 2024-2025 cycle. I just had a great conversation with "John," that's a pseudonym, but he's known as "Muvanji" on Reddit, about his admit and his decision to call this the end of his cycle and not pursue waitlists, his process of asking for scholarship reconsideration, his experience at admitted students day, what he's most looking forward to in law school, what he's most nervous about, reflecting on his whole cycle now that it's over, some advice for future applicants, and more.
If you haven't listened to our past episodes with John and are interested in learning more about his background and his application, feel free to go back to our first episode with him. We'll link both of the prior episodes in the description. As a very quick overview, he has a 174 LSAT, no cumulative GPA because he went to undergrad in England, where he got a law degree, he is an international applicant, and he's lived and gone to school in three countries so far, Canada, Kenya, and the UK, and now he is officially committed to starting the next phase of his education here in the U.S. His main goal after law school is to go into big law with a particular interest in antitrust. So without further delay, let's talk to John.
Hello, John!
John: Hi. How are you doing?
Anna: I'm doing great. How are you?
John: I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. Happy to be on the back end of the cycle now.
Anna: Yes! Yes. So this can be our conclusion episode. Very exciting to be at, early April, especially in a cycle that has stretched out so long. And I know there are plenty of listeners who have applied this cycle who are not at the end of their process, so I think you're in a very fortunate place.
Last time you and I spoke, you hadn't received any admits, but you'd had a few interviews, and then right after we spoke, you emailed me with a new development, which we ended up including as a little update at the end of our episode. But I'd love to give you the opportunity to tell everyone what happened as well. What was the decision you received? How did you receive it? Like, via what method of communication? And how did it feel?
John: For sure. It was a Friday, I think, seventh or ninth—that feels right—of February. I don't know. But either way, I was just watching Paradise on FaceTime with my girlfriend, and I just get the email notification, "Update from Dean Andy" or "Georgetown Application Update," and it was just great. Celebrated with my girlfriend, then I called my mom and dad, because they were out of the country, and told them, and they were happy. The first thing my mom said was actually, "How much does it cost?"
Anna: Practical, pragmatic. I like it.
John: Yeah, no, but I was super happy. They were super happy. It was great. It was really great. After that happened, it just, it makes everything better. My Reddit screen time plummeted. I missed NYU Wednesday waves. Doesn't even matter. Just rolls off. Once you get that first A, it's like a complete game changer in terms of like, how you feel mentally. Because, the thing is, my brain—I'm the type of person where, like, I'll look through the past through rose-colored glasses. So if somebody asks me, like, in a year from now, "Oh, how was the cycle?" I'll say it wasn't that bad. But thankfully we have video evidence of, like, how deflated I was in that last episode, right?
Anna: So you can look back and have concrete evidence, like, this is how far you've come. Which, that's great. And I think it'll also be helpful for listeners who might be getting ready to apply next cycle or sometime in the future to see, you know, okay, this process can go through its ups and its downs, but regardless of how sort of down you might end up at certain points, that does not mean that you aren't going to end the cycle with a great outcome that you're super excited about and super happy about.
John: A hundred percent.
Anna: So I think that's a great sort of case study, your application process. You know, anecdotally, we haven't done our end-of-cycle data analysis yet, which we collect a bunch of data from our clients and we do data analysis at the end of the cycle to look at various questions that we have. But anecdotally, right now, it does seem like this was a particularly difficult cycle for international applicants. So it's also a good one where, you know, I think you should be very excited to come out with an outcome that you're happy about.
Let's talk about scholarships. So, how long after your initial admit did you receive a scholarship? Or did it come with the initial admit? How'd you hear about scholarships?
John: So Georgetown, and maybe this isn't a hundred percent official, but from what I've seen from talking to people, they say everyone is considered for merit scholarship. Nobody who doesn't fill out a form—so you have to, like, they'll email it to some people, but even if they don't email it to you, you just email, like, the little hotline email they tell you when you get in. It's like, you say, "Hey, can I have the merit scholarship form?" and they'll give it to you, and you fill it out. And so I was waiting to see if I got any other offers or anything before filling it out.
Anna: Okay, so you had to reach out proactively to get the form.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're hearing that and you're like, "Oh, they didn't reach out to me. I have to reach out to them," don't feel bad, because they came back and they gave me, I think the first offer was—well, I don't know what it is in percent—but it's $45,000 a year, and tuition is $83,000.
Anna: Excellent.
John: So yeah, over 50%. And it's—you would think that, "Oh, I'm not going to get that much money, because—"
Anna: Because they didn't invite you to fill out this form.
John: Exactly.
Anna: Yeah. But that was not the case.
John: I filled it out on, I think, like Monday, the 17th of March, I want to say. And then I heard back, I want to say, 24th, around that timeline. I think it took about a week to hear back. And then I asked them for more money. I had actually asked them to bump me to $65,000.
Then they called me. And this is the thing, they don't call anyone. Nobody I've talked to has gotten a call from Georgetown. I'm in the admitted students Discord; no one else has gotten a call. They pretty much were trying to figure out, like, you know, where does Georgetown fit into your plans? Do I have any other offers? And I obviously have to be cagey, beause I don't have any other offers, like kind of bluffing, but I just harped on the fact, "Hey, I'm an international student, so I don't get federal loans." And also B, like, "Hey, I really like Georgetown. I'm really, really interested." Like I told them I went to admitted students day. I also mentioned, like, I visited Georgetown back in December, just like a self-guided tour. I want to be in D.C. afterwards and stuff.
And they gave me $5K a year more, so it's a total of $50K a year, which is like a 60% scholarship, two-thirds almost. It's not bad at all. I talked to somebody at the admitted students day who's also an international student, and she got in off the waitlist, and she said she just kept on asking them for more money, and she went from like $5 or $10K all the way to $50.
Anna: Dang. Okay, so you might just keep asking over the summer.
John: Exactly, right?
Anna: I mean, they're not going to rescind your offer; might as well.
John: Especially after the first deposit deadline, I'm hoping that there'll be money available, right? So I'll tell them, "Hey, looking at the numbers, can you guys help out a little bit more?" But I know, like, I'm looking at their 509. I'm at the 75th percentile grant amount, so I really can't complain.
Anna: Yeah. No, I mean, it's certainly a strong scholarship offer. Was that individual who you spoke to a current 1L, a current student?
John: Yeah, she was a current 1L.
Anna: Okay. That makes sense. I was about to be like, "Wait a second, has Georgetown already had waitlist movement? Did I miss it?" Which, you know, certainly happens before deposit deadlines, but it's usually one-off, someone got a higher LSAT, score or some other change to their application.
Okay, so that's very cool. So are you planning to periodically check in and ask about it? Once after the deposit deadline at least?
John: There's really no negative to it. I mean, like you said, they're not going to rescind my offer. The worst they can say is no. And they might say, "Here's $5,000 more dollars."
Anna: Right. Absolutely. That seems like a good attitude to me. That's really interesting that they called you. So you filled out this form, and then they called you, and you had this conversation. I'm wondering if it actually might have helped you somewhat that you didn't necessarily—or weren't talking about and harping on other offers that you had received. I suspect that part of that call was trying to gauge whether you were asking for scholarship reconsideration because you truly wanted to go to Georgetown and wanted to make it work financially, or whether you were just trying to play Georgetown off of other offers, like, "Okay, I'll get an increase, and then I'll bring that to Cornell or whatever, and then I'll try to play these schools off of each other." And I suspect that part of why you did get at least some increase was that you came across, most likely, as someone who was genuinely really interested in Georgetown. You had all these great objective reasons, you'd visited, you want to be in D.C., you have a significant other in the D.C. area. I suspect those things probably helped you.
So you didn't get the increase that you asked for, which I think is typical for this negotiation process—you throw out a number, and they meet you somewhere in the middle—but you did get that $5,000 increase, leaving you with $50,000 a year, which is wonderful. And then we'll see. If you, you know, end up with more increases as the cycle goes on, and maybe you can ping me about those. We probably won't record another episode just to talk about that, but I can maybe add to the blog later on this summer. You know, "As a quick addendum, he ended up increasing to this number," or whatever it might be. So that's great. Congratulations.
John: Thank you, thank you.
Anna: Your willingness to ask, and to reach out, and to talk to them, I think, helped you here for sure.
John: And I also forgot to mention, like, I submitted the reconsideration form. A couple days later, they called me in the morning. I think it was like last Monday morning. And then I got my $5K increase, and then I called back, I forgot—I called back, because there was, like, a, on the 1st of April, you had to submit this letter of intent to enroll form to, like, keep your scholarship offer. So the lady I spoke to, I was like, "Hey, we spoke this morning, I got back the increase, a little bit less than, you know, what I was hoping for. Is there any more wiggle room?" And she said, "I'll forward it to the people." And I was like, "Oh, will I hear back, though, because I have to, like, submit the form ahead of time?" And I didn't hear back. But yeah, I just thought that I'd mentioned that. I forgot about that.
Anna: Yeah. Along those same lines of, can't hurt to ask even if it doesn't necessarily pan out every time.
Okay, so you are basically calling your cycle done. Is that accurate?
John: Yeah. I've thought quite heavily about playing the waitlist, like I was leaning more Chicago in terms of writing—I even opened up Word, and I started, like, kind of brainstorming, it was, "Okay, what are the reasons I would write about in my letter of continued interest?" I thought it made a lot of sense because of the economic side of it. The Chicago School of Business was quite influential with antitrust policy, and I want to do antitrust, so it made sense on that front.
Anna: Yeah.
John: And I was actually planning to go visit UVA, because I know, like, you had said that was going to move the needle. So that same weekend I went to the Georgetown thing on Friday, I was going to go to the UVA on the Monday. Then I went to Georgetown, and then, like, I spoke to that person about money, and I was like, okay, I'm going to get money. After that conversation, I felt quite confident I was at least going to get something. At the beginning of the cycle, I think I was maybe like other people, it's like, "Oh yeah, like I'll just go to, like, this school at full cost. I'll go to this school at full cost." But when you actually have one school at a 60% discount—
Anna: Yeah. Yeah.
John: —versus another at full cost. You're like, "Okay, like do I really think I'm going to have that big of a difference in whatever?" And honestly, the main edge, this is what it came down to is, UVA, I think it's marginally better, but I don't think I would go to UVA at full cost over Georgetown. And then Chicago, Chicago is quite better, but what is it quite better for? It's quite better for clerkships. Maybe for what I want to do, there's some marginal utility in getting a clerkship. But for me to get that clerkship, I have to get married. And what are the odds that my relationship with my girlfriend progresses on the same trajectory I have planned—
Anna: Oh goodness.
John: —if we're long-distance, right? You know, like, long-distance sucks. We've been doing it for—almost our one-year anniversary, and it's just, like, quite horrible sometimes. So I'm just like, that also light at the end of the tunnel. Look, we're going to be in the same place. I'm done. Never have to do that again.
Anna: Yeah, yeah.
John: I think that was the tipping point, and I was just like, yeah, I can't subject myself to three more years of this.
Anna: That makes total sense to me. I did laugh at building that decision-making into your process of where am I going to go to law school? But it absolutely makes sense in terms of the long-distance stuff—and happy one-year anniversary. That's exciting. Good milestone. And for that milestone, you'll be moving to the same area! That'll be very nice, I'm sure.
So I'm not saying this in any way to suggest that you should change your decision-making on this. It sounds like you have great reasons. But I will just note for anyone who might be listening that certainly you are not looking at guaranteed $0 scholarship off of the waitlist. People absolutely do get scholarships off of the waitlist. It's not as common as if you get a straightforward admit earlier on in the cycle, but it's not necessarily the case that you will be looking at full cost of attendance if you are admitted off of the waitlist. So I just wanted to note that quickly, despite the fact that it has, I think, pretty much no bearing on your situation right now.
Okay, so you've decided not to play the waitlist game. You're committing. Where are you in the process of preparing for your move and for entering law school? I mean, I guess first, logistically, like, are you searching for housing? Are you looking at different elements of actually living in D.C.? Where are you in that process?
John: Yeah, so, I've looked at apartments. I think the big hurdle is I need to find a roommate. I'm someone, I don't want to live by myself, and I'm not going to live with my girlfriend, just because I guess our parents are a little bit old-fashioned; they wouldn't like that. And I mean, it's best not to rock the boat when I need a lot of parental support in the next couple years. But I think most people, at least that I've talked to about housing, they want to live by themselves. Maybe they have partners who they are living with. There's not that many people that I've seen, especially considering Georgetown's class is 600 people. It'd be different if there's only like 200 people, but out of 600 people, I thought more people would be looking for roommates. So I'm just trying to find people for that, but I know what kind of area I want to live in. I have a shortlist of buildings, and, like, I know what I'm planning for rent and stuff. So yeah, the roommate hurdle's just what I have to do now. And then I'll probably go down sometime in May, June and look at a couple places.
Anna: One thing I will note is that I wouldn't necessarily count out being roommates with someone who is not at the law school. I think that once you're in law school, it can become a real bubble where just everyone you are talking to and everything you are talking about is law school, law school, law school. So I actually tend to think that it can be helpful to get out of that bubble and give yourself some perspective. Of course, plenty of benefits to rooming with someone who is in the same experience as you. So, personal preference thing, but I wouldn't necessarily count it out, is what I'll say.
John: For undergrad, I did law, right? And I lived with all law students in second year and third year. My grades were a lot better in second year and third year than they were in first year!
Anna: So maybe being embedded in that bubble was helpful for you!
John: Yeah. I just think it's nice. I think during my first year, around then, or second year, there was like this trend going on TikTok where this guy, he was like, academic, but he would sit at the front of the lecture every time. So we just started doing that. And like sometimes, you know, you just don't really have the feeling of, "Oh, I don't want to go to class today," but I'm like, when all of your house is going to class, like you're going to stay at home when everyone else is like getting their bags ready? So it's like the perfect kind of motivation and stuff. And we all go to the library together. Especially in third year, we take different courses, but we still study together. I just kind of like it, especially in first year, even though you can have a different professor, have a different section, at least, like, you're all taking the same courses, pretty much.
Anna: Yeah. Yeah. That logic makes sense to me. It would be nice if you ended up in the same section as someone who was your roommate, but probably you have to make that roommate decision before you'll know that. But yeah, as you said, you're taking the same core doctrinal classes either way, regardless.
That was another thing I wanted to ask about, speaking of your prior law school experience. At this point in the process, if an applicant is decided on their law school, oftentimes they'll start looking to academically preparing for law school. So usually people don't get into the substantive law, but they may be looking into sort of the methods of law school and, you know, what does it mean to brief a case? What is a racehorse exam, and how does that work? And should I be outlining, and when should I be outlining? And those sorts of things. Certainly some people wait until they get into 1L to start to look at those questions, but I do think that academic preparation prior to law school, and especially during the summer prior to law school, is pretty common. But you are in sort of a different situation in that you have already attended law school. So I'm curious what your thoughts are on that. Are you planning to do any sort of academic prep, or are you feeling, "Okay, I'm already comfortable with how law school works, and I'll just go in and kill it based on my prior experience," and based on your natural aptitude. Where are you on that?
John: So in terms of, like, prep. I know that people always try prepping, but like if somebody posts online or they ask, they say, "Hey, what should I do? I'm an incoming 1L; what should I do to prep?" Everyone just says, "Relax," you know, or they'll say, like, "Read X, Y, and Z books." Maybe, I don't know if I've read those books before, but I wasn't planning on doing anything specifically to prep. But I do know, in terms of my mentality, if somebody who's in my situation, there's two types of people, like on the ends of the spectrum. There's somebody who can be super overconfident and being like, "Oh, I already crushed law school; I'm going to crush it again." And there's somebody who might be overly scared. Even though they have some advantage or experience, they might be, like, worrying a lot. And I know, like towards those two ends of the spectrum, I would tilt towards overconfidence, so I'm just trying to make sure, like, I bring my ego back and, like, treat it like I'm doing it for the first time in that regard, because maybe there's habits or stuff I have that work there that won't work here. Also, I just can't imagine people or professors or anyone really liking somebody who has the attitude of, "Oh, I kind of already know everything already."
Anna: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
John: So I'm treating it like I haven't done school before, but in terms of prep, I wasn't really planning on doing anything specific over the summer.
Anna: That attitude makes a lot of sense to me and, I suspect, will serve you well to not go in and have that attitude of, "I already know all of this, and I'm going to absolutely crush it based on my prior experience." That certainly makes sense to me.
I do think that one sort of helpful way of preparing for law school that has nothing to do with academics is really getting into a good routine and setting up those habits of self-care. Which is trite, perhaps, but I think especially in law school and especially during 1L, it's really easy to lose that kind of thing, to, you know, "I think I can cut exercising out of my schedule cause I have too much reading to do," "I think I can cut meal prep out," or whatever it might be that you do to keep yourself healthy and sane. So that's one thing that I think can be helpful.
Also, there is great merit to just relaxing, as you said is the advice that a lot of people give. Because your brain is certainly going to be working hard while you're in law school, and giving yourself a bit of a mental break, I think, can sort of recharge you for what's to come and the intellectual rigor of what's to come in the very near future.
Going back a little bit, you mentioned going to an admitted students event. Was that like an admitted students day or an admitted students weekend?
John: Admitted Students Day at Georgetown. Yeah, it was on the 21st, I want to say, of March.
Anna: Okay, can you tell me a little bit about that? What sorts of activities and sessions did they do? What did you find most helpful or exciting? Did you enjoy meeting your future classmates?
John: Yeah, so actually, like, the day before, on the Thursday, in the admitted students Discord, there were some people who had, like, planned a meetup, and so we went to, like, this bar. That was super fun. This guy—I won't say his name—he had really gone above and beyond. There were like little Georgetown cookies and stuff, and it was really cool. And it was just super cool meeting a bunch of people.
On the actual day, so at the beginning of the day, you just kind of have some people talk. Dean Andy talks a little bit. Then you go on the... I went on a campus tour. The campus tour is one thing; like, I would prefer not to be in a city. If I had first choice preference, if I could pick Georgetown up and move it to the middle of nowhere Virginia, like Charlottesville, I would. It's a condensed campus because it's in a city. But then again, also what I don't like is that pretty much all of your classes are in the same building. That's how I, I had it personally in undergrad.
Anna: That's most common in law schools.
John: Because there's only 200 people, right? So, like, it's not like undergrad, where you have a class there and a class there and a class there. I felt like I missed out on that when I was in my undergrad, and I was hoping, "Oh, I'll go to the U.S., and I'll get that experience." I'm just like, I'm not going to get that experience regardless, right?
Anna: Yeah, probably not a law school, even at this largest law school in the country.
John: But that's just a really small thing. And then, yeah, there was the financial aid meeting, which international students don't get any aid. So that was actually a waste of time.
Anna: Right, going through all the loans and processes and things, and you're like, I won't be doing any of this.
John: Yeah, but I just skip to the highlight. The first in the morning, we had a mock class with a professor, and it was so cool. I forget what area of law he focuses on, but I think you can get him for ConLaw, maybe, or something like that. But either way, his combination of competence and enthusiasm was just perfect. Like, you could tell he was such a bright person, but also just the way he was delivering the information and the content and keeping everyone engaged, I thought it was perfect. It made me super, super excited.
Anna: Did they cold call people during that mock class or no?
John: No, no, no. It was in an auditorium; it was like 400 people who came up to the ASD, I think they said.
Anna: Okay.
John: So people, you could put your hand up to respond to a question and stuff. But yeah, it just made me super excited to—I was really looking forward to actually, like, do a real class in the fall.
And then in the afternoon, they had some former graduates come to speak to us, but I think the real highlight for me was they talked about the Supreme Court Institute that they have at the school, because I think they have a lot of clinics, but they had this appellate judge, and then they had a professor who was actually the husband of the judge. And then they had this woman, Lisa Blatt, and she's the woman who has argued in front of the Supreme Court the most times out of any woman in the history of the United States. She has, like, an insane win record too. And like, it was just so cool hearing them talk, and they were telling stories, because I think all of them had argued in front of the Supreme Court at one time, and it was just really cool. I saw posters, like they had, I think, Sotomayor or Kagan going to speak right after the admitted students day, and they had Doug Emhoff right after her. So it's like going to a school where it's like, I'm getting all these opportunities to, you know, hear from and meet, like, all these, like, super accomplished, wonderful people. Like, that was, like, super, super motivating.
Anna: Yeah, absolutely. That sounds great.
So was there a mixer component in the evening or some sort of social component, or not in an organized way?
John: I mean, I think there were like, there was a thing to meet clubs at the end, and then I went to a BLSA event at the end of the day. And that was fun. It was super cool to meet people from that. I was asking, like, "Hey, how have you guys found 1L hiring? Are people getting any 1L jobs?" Kind of poking and prodding for that.
But yeah, I think just throughout the day I was trying to talk to people. I brought my girlfriend with me. I think I'm really good at talking to people, like, I can go up by myself and just figure out and find people. I was working on the balance of including her as well. You know what I mean? I don't want her to feel left out. I didn't talk to maybe as many people as I maybe normally would've if I was just by myself, but I still feel like I met a lot of people, and that was fun.
Anna: Nice. Yeah, it's always exciting, I mean, both the mock class and the Supreme Court session and mingling with your future classmates, although certainly to different degrees, law school does tend to be full of meeting brilliant, accomplished people who you get to soak up all of the wisdom and experience and perspective that they have. Law schools do tend to trot out their sort of best and most charismatic professors for these mock classes, but that is not at all to say that your other classes won't also have brilliant, amazing professors. So that's exciting. It sounds like it got you excited for law school.
John: A hundred percent.
I don't know if I had expressed this to you, but like, I feel like I was way more susceptible to Reddit than I probably thought I was. In terms of, like, I was overthinking, is Georgetown like a, is it like, you know, a good enough school? Obviously it is, but you know what I mean? But like, kind of getting in my head about that.
Anna: Yeah. The skewed perspective you get from Reddit.
John: Yeah. Like, it's like, oh my gosh, it's tied for fourteenth. Like, if you saw the rankings come out—I'm like, it's tied with WashU. Oh my gosh.
Anna: Oh my goodness. Well, yes, in these new rankings, Harvard has plummeted out of the top five, so clearly that means that the quality of the institution has significantly decreased since they were ranked number two. To be clear, that is entirely tongue-in-cheek.
We've spoken a lot about the rankings in the past; we're not doing it much this year. We’ve already put out a predicted ranking; there was lots of discussion about that. And I do think that it is starting to sink into the collective consciousness surrounding law school applicants that there's a level of unreliability here, and, you know, year-to-year changes are not necessarily something that means really anything. I do think that long-term significant changes that happen over time can sometimes be meaningful, but that's usually because they are reflecting the law school's employment outcomes or real substantive initiatives that they are taking on to improve the quality of their law school, so those are things that you can sort of gauge without looking at rankings, and just looking at ABA-required disclosures and data like that. It is always interesting to see how things shake up. You know, they always have to change them a little bit if they want to sell their subscriptions and things like that. Because if it stayed the same every year, then nobody would look at it.
John: I kind of feel like my mental model, obviously I have Harvard, Stanford, Yale in the bucket, and maybe I throw Chicago in there too. And then, like, maybe you have Columbia, NYU, and then maybe a couple others, but, like, let's say from, like, Michigan, Northwestern, the California schools, for example, like UCLA and Berkeley, are above, let's say, Georgetown or Cornell. If somebody wants to be on the East Coast, if you want to be in New York, and you're telling me, "Oh, should I go to Berkeley or Cornell?" I find it hard-pressed for somebody to make the argument of Berkeley or UCLA.
Anna: For sure.
John: Or the same thing for D.C. and one of those schools like and Georgetown. So I think that when you look at it that way, what you guys did this year makes more sense, like, to have the kind of groupings rather than the distinctive—what is that called again? An ordered list, 1, 2, 3, 4.
Anna: Yeah, like ordinal.
John: Yeah.
Anna: Agreed. I think that sort of makes more sense, and it's a very good point about the regional component, because I do think that's something that people, not everyone necessarily considers it, but it absolutely plays a role in, if you want to be practicing in a certain area, certainly, certainly at more regional schools generally, but even within the top 14, it's relevant that the region that you hope to practice in and the region where you go to law school. So I tend to think that that's something that people should think more on. That's actually a point that Kyle McEntee, the founder of Law School Transparency who now works for LSAC, made when he was on our podcast a few months ago as we were talking about various developments in legal education and law school admissions. And I think it's a very good point and something that people should perhaps think more about. And certainly I think it makes sense in your case, as you're looking at Georgetown and your desire to be in the D.C. area, both during law school and after.
John: That being said, I'm sure that if I went to a higher-ranked school, I would say the rankings are everything, and, if you don't care about the rankings it's just because you're not number one.
Anna: Yeah, people tend to look more favorably at rankings when it is more favorable for their school.
John: Yeah.
Anna: Oh yeah. I should be like the biggest champion of rankings because now UVA, oh, number four.
John: Yeah. Better than Harvard.
Anna: Yeah, man. Rankings are... interesting.
John: Yeah. I'm very happy to be done with that whole game. Who cares about U.S. News? Who cares about waves? Just free.
Anna: So you're done with your admissions process—for the most part, apart from maybe some additional asks as far as scholarship money. But you are getting ready to enter 1L. You have a few months to sort of relax and let your brain take a breather from all of the stress of this process. I'm curious, stepping back, what are you most excited about for starting law school?
John: My brain doesn't need a breather. It needs a jumpstart. I want to do something again.
Anna: Okay, well that's good.
John: I feel like my life has kind of just been on pause. The name of the game this year was just waiting. Writing the applications and then waiting to hear back and all that stuff, and now I'm waiting for school to start. This is, I guess, something pretty unique to me, but sometimes, like, I forget how crazy/unique kind of my life has been in the sense of, born in Canada, went to school in Kenya for a couple years, and then, like, I just up and decided, "Oh, let me go to England for a little bit." And then, like, in the back of my head, I always knew I wanted to end up in the U.S., and it's actually happening, like I'm pinching myself a little bit. Hopefully, everything works out, and like, nothing goes awry. But yeah, it's just kind of, like, crazy that back when, like, I think the first time I was, like, 12 years old, my sister gave me her Netflix account, and I'm watching Suits, and I'm like, "Oh yeah, I want to end up in America," and it's actually happening.
Anna: Yeah. The culmination and fruition of sort of all these long-term dreams and goals—that's exciting.
John: Yeah. So I think that's what I'm really, like, looking forward to. And obviously, yeah, just actually doing something again, meeting new people. Now I'm, like, one step closer to, like, my ultimate goal.
Anna: Yeah, absolutely. Very, very exciting.
Is there anything that you are particularly nervous about or have reservations on, or are you all positivity right now?
John: Ooh, that's a good question. Nerves, nerves, nerves. I'm slightly nervous about grades, in the sense of, I know, like I've looked at—you know the website Firm Prospects? It's super, super cool. Like they have a bunch of data you can get access to as soon as you get your law school email, which I have access to now. Remember how I told you I was looking at, like, the Chambers rankings for which firms do antitrust? So now I use that, and I cross-reference, I look at those firms, specifically their D.C. office, and I can see, okay, last couple of years, who did they hire? How many Georgetown people did they hire? Who did they hire from? And from kind of the firms I want to target, all of them pretty much, I think everyone from Georgetown was at least cum laude, which I think is the top third. So, like, I know antitrust has that reputation of being more kind of brainy anyways, so I always knew it was going to be hard. I'm just hoping I can get top third. Like, I feel pretty confident, and I'm just like, oh yeah, like, I got it. I'll crush it. And I feel like, like I said, I have my previous experience to fall back on. And other times I'm like, okay, like everyone I'm going to be up against is super smart. You know what I mean? It's not like I lay awake worrying about it, but I am cognizant of the fact that I do have to perform pretty well to get the outcome that I want.
Anna: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I think that's sort of a good balance to be at, of having that awareness and knowing what steps you need to take in order to reach the goals that you are hoping to, but not just stewing in your stress and anxiety about it.
John: Exactly.
Anna: I think that's the balance you want to achieve.
I want to do a little bit of a retrospective on your admission cycle, but is there anything else that has been on your mind or that you were hoping to talk about as far as looking forward to law school?
John: No, I think we covered it all. We just have, what, four more months to kill? I'm going to move in as soon as I can in August. Probably get a lease for August 1st, and I'll move shortly after that. Just hoping I can teleport three more months, four more months into the future.
Anna: Oh, yeah, you were talking about knowing which areas and neighborhoods you want to be in for law school. Are you planning to be right next to the law school, super close, or in sort of a different area?
John: I want to be in the Noma area. I just pretty much looked at, how far did I live from campus, like, last year, and I was 0.7 miles away. And that felt to me pretty close. Like, I do that walk in 12 minutes. So I'm willing to live, like, within a mile radius. That gives me, like, a lot of options. Like, anything that's like a mile walk. Because Google says it's, I don't know, like 25 minutes, maybe 20. That thing is 15 minutes max. Like 15, 17 minutes, and I think—I get my steps in. And like there, I don't have to worry about exercise maybe as much as I would. Because right now I'm like, I don't have to leave my house, which is bad cause I look at my Apple steps, and it's literally like a thousand some days. But like when you're walking to school every day, you at least hit like 6,000 to 10,000 just by, like, going to school and going back.
Anna: Yeah, for sure. Okay. That makes sense to me. So, hoping to be walking distance and then get some of that movement and being outside and sort of all these positive things that you don't necessarily naturally get as a 1L. So I like that. That sounds good.
John: And warm weather. What is it in Freedom Units? Let me think. It's negative three in Celsius. I keep on trying to, like, practice that so I'm able to use Fahrenheit natively by the time I come. Google says it's... oh, 26. I was quite off.
Anna: Yeah, well, you'll have to work on it still some more. That'll be your academic preparation for law school, is memorizing the conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit.
John: Yeah—but it's April, and it's negative. What is this hell I'm living in? I want out.
Anna: As you know, I also live in this area, in the D.C. area. It was actually so warm, like just recently, and now it's cold again.
John: Oh it's cold there too. Okay, but how cold is cold?
Anna: Yeah. How cold is cold? I mean, it's like, lows in the forties, I think.
John: Oh, okay. That is, that's decently chilly.
Anna: Yeah, it was much warmer a couple of weeks ago and last week. You will find that about the D.C. area. We have lots of sort of false starts of seasons. Like it'll get really cold, and you're like, okay, it's winter now, and then next week it'll be 65 degrees, and you're like, oh, maybe not. Happens for spring too. And then, occasionally, you'll get just, like, in the middle of the season, just a weirdly warm or cold day. The weather's volatile here, so, hope you enjoy it.
John: Yeah, I mean it cannot be worse than here. Like, during the admitted students, the thingy that was before the day, that little Discord meetup—which I'm cringing saying out loud those two words together—but I was talking to somebody, and I've been really looking forward to the golf season starting again. And I was talking to him, and ,like, he said it was warm. So he had gotten out, and I think he had played the first round, cause he was just around the Baltimore area. And I came back, and I was like, you know what, I bought some clubs from Facebook Marketplace. I got super excited, and then I'm looking at the weather, and I'm like, "The season actually isn't here for another month in Canada." And we had a warm day, and I was driving around looking for any ranges that were open, but nada.
Anna: Nope. Season has not started yet.
John: Yeah, so that's the main thing I'm looking forward to, actually. Scratch everything I said about school and being intellectually stimulated. Looking forward to getting away from this horrible weather.
Anna: And an earlier golf season!
John: Yeah. And a later one too.
Anna: Yeah, just more expansive generally.
Okay, so let's look back at your admission cycle, which maybe this will be the last time you have to think deeply about admissions. I will hope for you that admissions does not have to be on your mind much in the future. But looking back at your admissions process, what stands out as the sort of easiest part or the part that came most naturally to you, and what stands out as the hardest part?
John: Easiest part: LSAT. I'm quite lucky to be able to say that, but it was literally…
Anna: Yeah, some listeners are very jealous of you right now.
John: This sounds silly, but I didn't have to think. I just had to take myself to the library and just turn on 7Sage and then, like, autopilot from there. Does that make sense? The type of thinking that was required when I was writing my essays, I didn't like feeling like I had to justify why I wanted to go to law school. Does that make sense? Because you have the feeling of, oh, is this person going to think it's good enough? Is this a good enough reason? And when I was doing, like, law firm apps, some of them ask, "Why law?" And that was the question I always struggled with the most. It's the question I least liked, because is my reason good enough? Is this person going to think this is a good enough reason? So that's what I really just did not like.
Looking retrospectively as well, maybe you can chime in here with your expertise working in admissions consulting. Obviously, like, I have my result, and I'm happy with my result. But I also had a lot of waitlists and rejections. So, like, looking at that outcome, I'm trying to hypothesize, okay, why might it be? And this is the theory I came up with; I guess you can tell me whether you think it's on base or not. I feel like when I look at my profile, and I look at the way I kind of wrote my essays, what I was also thinking was, like, the reader thinking, "Okay, this person is someone who wants to do big law, wants to do corporate law," and also, like, "Look, they've already gotten it. We don't have to worry about them in regards to employment outcomes." But like, say you're an admissions officer at Columbia or Harvard or any of those schools. I feel like you're not really worrying about somebody struggling to get big law from your school anyways. Does that make sense? I've said jokingly that Harvard wants somebody who could end up being president, and if that doesn't work out, they'll go work at big law. They necessarily might not want someone who wants to do big law. That's like their kind of backup option. So I've thought, if I go back—I've done, like, I think a lot of different extracurriculars. So I know people always talk about making sure your thing is authentic, but I think that it comes through, like, is the thing you're talking about, do your actions back up? And I think that I could have approached my essays differently, and I wouldn't change my Georgetown essay because I'm happy with the result I got there. But if I could selectively go back and try with that other approach for other schools, I wonder if I would get different outcomes.
Anna: Yeah. Okay. That makes sense to me. I hear where you're coming from on the sort of, Harvard wants people who want to be president, and then their backup is big law. I will say, I don't think law schools have an inherent problem with people targeting big law, and actually, I tend to think that they appreciate sort of the candor, because they see, every single year, lots of applicants who write personal statements about how much they want to do public service and how dedicated they are to X or Y cause, and then, like immediately once they enroll in law school, they're pursuing a 1L associate position at a law firm. I think sometimes it can be a bit refreshing, honestly. A big law outcome is not, for any school, a negative outcome. So in terms of, like, the various metrics that they're measuring, that reflects well on a school when someone goes into big law. So I tend not to think that that was probably a big problem in your application.
I seem to recall that you didn't do all of the optionals, right?
John: No, didn't do all the optionals. I wrote a statement of perspective.
Anna: Okay. So I do think that for some of these schools that not doing optionals probably wasn't ideal for your application, especially in such a competitive cycle like this, where top schools have their pick of people who have super high numbers, and, you know, that's not sufficient in the way that it once was for admissions. If you look at 10 years ago, somebody who has, let's say, a 3.9 GPA and a 175 LSAT, people would have been absolutely shocked that that person did not get into, like, a bunch of T14s. And people are no longer shocked by that necessarily. It doesn't necessarily indicate that there was some red flag in your application or some big problem. It might just mean there were other applicants who were stronger and also have incredible numbers, which is kind of mind-blowing.
I think another component, as I talked about, was I do think that this was a particularly tough cycle for international applicants. I think that's probably a component as well. And the overall hugely competitive cycle.
I will caveat that I have not read your application, so I think I would have probably more insights had I actually looked at your materials. But that's not the purpose of this podcast. We've done those sorts of things before, actually looking at applicants' actual applications to various schools, and then we had our consultants who had previously worked at those schools, do, like, an application critique. Obviously, with the full permission of the person whose application it was and anonymously. Those got a lot of views on our YouTube channel, but people also really hated them. People were like, "Oh my gosh, this is so judgy," essentially, and, "I can't believe that they're discounting them for X, Y, Z." I think to some extent that's the process. And as you were talking about, it feels crappy to be asserting why you want to go to law school and wondering, oh, is this good enough? Are they going to look down upon this? I do think that sort of evokes a very natural negative reaction. So we're not going to do that. If you're listening to this and that sounds like it would be helpful for you personally, not publicly, feel free to reach out to us. We have a "decision analysis" service that is pretty cheap, pretty affordable.
Carrying on—I'm curious, and this might be my last question unless you have other things that you'd like to talk about—looking back at your whole process, you've gone through it, you've made your decision. What advice would you like to leave for someone who might be listening to this and getting ready to apply? They haven't submitted any applications yet, but they are looking at the start of this process.
John: You know what? I think the biggest thing that helped was, like, having my friends from Reddit. TooTireToTryAgain and AbleFlower. He did get into Harvard, by the way.
Anna: Oh, that's so exciting! Congratulations TooTiredToTryAgain.
John: Yeah. So yeah, he's probably going there depending on financial aid. Not to out his cycle, but he has that, and then he has ASU, and we're pretty much just looking at a lot of waitlists and Rs between the two of us. He did say earlier, he said, if I was only going to have one A, like, I'll take that HLS A.
Anna: Uh, yeah, no kidding. If you have to have a cycle of all denials and one admit, that one admit being Harvard Law School is a pretty good place to be.
John: Exactly. But yeah, like, just having that person who's literally going through the exact same thing I was going through—I mean, we're literally both international. Last episode, we were talking about, like, I wonder how what's going on in the real world currently is affecting admissions officers and stuff like that. We literally started the process together when we were studying, now a year ago. He's been my friend longer than I've been with my girlfriend. We already had our one-year anniversary. And then working together on essays and just going through the stress of, oh, we missed this wave. Or like, "Here, let's hop on a call and see if we get this wave." Just stuff like that. It really helps because, you know, people in your life can support you, but it's not the same as somebody who's going through it. And I'm sure, like, they'll get tired of hearing you talk about it eventually.
Anna: Right, about like, all the granular little things you're stressing about, yeah.
John: Yeah, so I feel like sometimes when I was going off the rails, he helped calm me down and vice versa. I think that's the biggest piece of advice. If you have a friend in real life who you can go through the process with, or you can find somebody on Reddit. If you haven't taken the LSAT, someone to study that with. If you have already taken it, someone to, like, trade essays with. I really feel like I have a friend that I'll have forever, and that's just super cool.
Anna: Yeah. That is really, really cool. That's kind of interesting, because I would sum up what we've been talking about with regards to Reddit—and please correct me if this is not an accurate summary—but it seems like one of the sort of best parts of your process came from Reddit, and then one of the, you know, worst parts of your process came from Reddit.
John: Yeah.
Anna: So it sounds like your advice might be, you know, to find sort of a smaller community or like a couple of friends who you can really go through the process with and lean on and support and be supported by, but not necessarily super heavily engage in sort of the overall bigger community of like, oh, is this wave coming, and all the stresses that can come with that. Is that accurate?
John: Yeah. Maybe engage with Reddit until, let's say, September 1st of your cycle, then close it completely, and then don't open it again until, like, let's say May 1st when deposit deadlines are all done. That'd be like a super optimal thing. You get the best of both worlds.
Anna: Find your buddy at the beginning and then just leave.
John: Exactly. Because, yeah, I don't know how much value I got from Reddit during the cycle. I think, like, I got a lot of value from it before. Maybe I'll get some value afterwards, but like during the cycle, I think it was a net negative.
Anna: Yeah, fair. I do think that's the case for a lot of applicants. I do think some people find value in it and that commiseration aspect, so I certainly won't totally discredit the idea of being on Reddit, but I absolutely do think for a lot of people it is healthiest to kind of stay off of it. I think that's good advice.
Alright, well, it has been so wonderful following your cycle with you and being with you through those ups and downs and then ending in a place where you have a really great outcome. It's been really enjoyable, and I've enjoyed getting to meet you and to bring your story to other listeners and other prospective and current applicants.
John: Awesome. Thank you so much. I really love doing this too. It was always a highlight, something I was looking forward to. I feel like you were my good luck charm. Like, what, I think you reached out in January asking how things are going, and then I got my Georgetown interview, like, right after that. Then after we recorded, I got my A.
Anna: Yeah, true! These happened like right after. Okay. So everybody listening, please apply to be on our podcast next cycle so that you can have it as a good luck charm.
John: Yeah. Awesome, yeah. I really loved this. Thank you so much.
Anna: Thank you. Thank you as well to our listeners, and we hope to see you next time.